Monday February 9th 2026
West Lothian Council headquarters
Written by Local Democracy Reporter, Stuart Sommerville
A senior West Lothian Labour councillor has challenged colleagues on a health board to demand more funding from the Scottish Government.
Faced with a £22m budget gap Linlithgow councillor Tom Conn said the decisions facing West Lothian’s Integration Joint Board (IJB) would see the closure of the Rosemount cafe in Bathgate “pale into insignificance”.
It faces a new budget in March where it will have to consider rationing care.
The Board, which oversees health and social care for the vulnerable and elderly wiped out the last of its cash reserves this year.
Councillor Conn, one of four West Lothian councillors on the Board told a meeting: “The Scottish Government has decided to not to fully fund services.”
“The decisions we are going to have to make are as a direct result of decisions taken in Edinburgh.
“I’m going to be blunt. I’m not taking personal responsibility for that. That decision has been taken in Edinburgh and I am going to continually point the finger at Edinburgh. They need to change their attitude.”
Councillor Conn railed at the Board having to consider capping care or rationing in an elderly population, saying the lack of direct funding from the government was forcing the “provision of services on the basis of filling a dead person’s shoes or bed, and not providing statutory services.”
He added: “That’s the stark reality of where we are. We need to stand up and say we have zero reserves. We had £10m clawed back by the Scottish Government. These are choices made in Edinburgh.”
Councillor Conn added that the decisions the Board now faces put the decision last year to close the Rosemount Cafe in a Bathgate elderly care facility into perspective.
He told the meeting: “What we have before us now is out of all proportion to that situation and certain local politicians who campaigned on keeping that facility open should hang their heads in shame when they consider what we are now going to have to consider.
“It pales into insignificance and I don’t say that lightly. The stark reality is that this madness has to stop, but I don’t think at out budget it will stop Reality has to sink in somewhere else.”
Earlier in the meeting the council’s Chief Social Worker Jo McPherson had issued her blunt assessment that the Board would have to consider “capping services”.
She said the budget gap presents: “Significant risk to the people that we are paid to support, and it also presents a significant risk to our statutory responsibilities and also for our practitioners.”
Conservative group leader Damian Doran-Timson asked : “Are we saying that potentially we will not be able to provide our statutory services?
Ms McPherson confirmed there was a risk .
Chair of the Board, John Innes said it was caught between statutory duties to balance its budget and those to provide care services.
Addressing Councillor Conn’s comment Mr Innes said: “I think I share much of that view and colleagues do as well. This about us continuing to operate as a board and continuing to make the position we find ourselves in as clear as possible.
“We need to continue to work as a team to provide what we can to the community. We need to communicate this to the government and to the public as well”.
Union rep Stevie Dunn told the Board: “The people who are going to be impacted by these decisions, staff, service users and service users’ families, you guys are the first level of democracy that they will come after and protest against and campaign against. We then look to you to take the message to the Scottish Government.”
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